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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 63 



in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in the southern tier of counties 

 where the state owns 55,000 acres. The altitude of the camp is 

 1,650 to 1,700 feet. It is now the site of the great State Sanatorium 

 known as Mont Alto with a capacity of over 1,000 patients. 



At first the patients were obliged to provide and to prepare their 

 own food, but the legislature afterward appropriated enough to 

 enable the management to furnish food, and the results were better 

 than before. Only patients in the incipient stages were admitted, 

 and of the 141 so cared for (up to the year 1908) about 75 per 

 cent were either much improved or cured. The charge to the patients 

 was one dollar per week for all supplies and services, excepting 

 washing and the care of their cabins and their persons. The large 

 forestry reserve allows of an indefinite extension of this method of 

 dealing with the disease, and the small expense seems to point to it 

 as a way to provide for the large class of patients who must be cared 

 for in the incipient stages if the disease is to be checked and its 

 victims restored to society as safe and potent factors in industrial 

 progress. Dr. Rothrock, who has just closed twenty years of distin- 

 guished service to the state in the forestry commission, believes 

 that the forest reservations furnish an answer to the further prob- 

 lem of how to care for the consumptive whose disease is arrested, 

 but whose financial condition demands that he must still be cared for 

 until able to return to his home. Pennsylvania has nearly a million 

 acres of forest reservation, much of which needs replanting with 

 young trees. To do this requires a large number of men, and the 

 task of raising and transplanting trees is mostly light outdoor labor, 

 well suited to the convalescent consumptive. In addition, there are 

 various forms of woodcraft, such as basket making and the manu- 

 facture of small rustic articles that could easily be carried on under 

 healthful conditions in the forests. The example of Pennsylvania 

 suggests the propriety of other states taking similar steps and pro- 

 viding for the large number of consumptives who need care in an 

 inexpensive and at the same time effective manner. 



The United States Government should establish without delay 

 large forest reserves in the Eastern, Middle, and Southern States. 

 The White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Southern Appa- 

 lachians should be placed under a system of Federal protection. It 

 is encouraging to note that by a recent decision (November, 191 3) 

 of the Courts of New Hampshire the way is opened for the condem- 

 nation of mountain land in that State and indemnity has been 

 awarded private owners for land so taken. 



